Acostumbrarse

To get accustomed to... lo que sea.
So, based on past experience, I have a tendency to adapt well to new situations. Who knew? Well, I guess I did, but I didn't really get it until tonight. Hanging out and driving home with my surrogate padres in Bollullos, I got a heads up that not everyone in years past has adapted so well to the current situation, the job, the students, the co-workers, the life in a pueblo... Anyhow, I can't say it was all my doing. I've been fortunate to have good roommates who are more likely to want to have a kitchen conversation than to leave any part of the house in ruin; to work at a school that doesn't demand much, but where I can take advantage of openings to throw in a new lesson, or song (next week 1980 hit "Fame." No lie. "Fame! I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly, FAME!..." Of course I'll have to explain that "gonna" is not bien dicho, but moving forward), and there are still profs that smile when they see me in any part of the school or the streets of Bollullos.

I guess I do smile a lot, which is not exactly a vice. I mean, it's not like everyone's inviting me over their homes, but I have what I need from who I need it, and it makes me happy to have found happy places here. Case in point the surrogate padres. (I don't wanna make my parents feel slighted, obviously they're irreplaceable. I call this other couple my surrogate padres because they're the same age as my parents, and they kind of do remind me of George and Gladys besides obvious differences of color, stature, native language, and overall genetic composition. Nonetheless, I feel the love, and appreciate their effort to help me find playmates among the jovenes of Bollullos.)

En fin. I often said at the beginning of this experience when there were things I wasn't used to, tengo que acostumbrarme a... whatever the new and raro thing was, and al final, I've gotten accustomed to a lot. Adapted. That's what I'll put on my resume. Adapted to cultural immersion in a pueblo of the Andaluz. Adapted indeed.